What do you think?
Rate this book
The Barbican Estate
A beautifully produced book to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Grade II listed brutalist icon, the Barbican Estate.
2019 marks the 50th anniversary of the first residents moving into the Barbican Estate in London. This new book is a celebration of this unique complex – looking at the design of the individual flats as well as its status as a brutalist icon. Author and designer Stefi Orazi interviews residents past and present, giving an insight into how life on the estate has changed over the decades.
The complex, designed by Chamberlin, Powell and Bon, is now Grade II listed, and is one of the world’s most well-known examples of brutalist architecture. Its three towers – Cromwell, Shakespeare and Lauderdale – are among London’s tallest residential spaces and the estate is a landmark of the city. This is a beautifully illustrated, comprehensive guide to the estate, with newly commissioned photography by Christoffer Rudquist. It will show in detail each of the 140 different flat types, including newly drawn drawings of the flats as well as original plans and maps.
Includes fascinating texts by leading architects and design critics, including John Allan of Avanti Architects on the unique building materials and fittings of the flats, and Charles Holland of Charles Holland Architects (and FAT co-founder) on the home and how these concrete towers have become such an integral part of Britain’s domestic and architectural history.
2019 marks the 50th anniversary of the first residents moving into the Barbican Estate in London. This new book is a celebration of this unique complex – looking at the design of the individual flats as well as its status as a brutalist icon. Author and designer Stefi Orazi interviews residents past and present, giving an insight into how life on the estate has changed over the decades.
The complex, designed by Chamberlin, Powell and Bon, is now Grade II listed, and is one of the world’s most well-known examples of brutalist architecture. Its three towers – Cromwell, Shakespeare and Lauderdale – are among London’s tallest residential spaces and the estate is a landmark of the city. This is a beautifully illustrated, comprehensive guide to the estate, with newly commissioned photography by Christoffer Rudquist. It will show in detail each of the 140 different flat types, including newly drawn drawings of the flats as well as original plans and maps.
Includes fascinating texts by leading architects and design critics, including John Allan of Avanti Architects on the unique building materials and fittings of the flats, and Charles Holland of Charles Holland Architects (and FAT co-founder) on the home and how these concrete towers have become such an integral part of Britain’s domestic and architectural history.
- GenresArchitecturePhotography
304 pages, Hardcover
Published May 7, 2019
4 people are currently reading
69 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
Read
May 31, 2025Sitting at the Barbican, reading about the Barbican. Everything might just be okay.
January 3, 2022
The haters can say what they want about this building, I would absolutely live there..
April 8, 2020
Gorgeous photographs in this book, as well as lovely stories from inhabitants. However, way too many grammatical errors bring this down to 3 stars for me. Inexcusable to have such sloppy text in an otherwise lovely book. This remains my favorite place to visit in London, and I’ll use the maps and stories to explore more deeply next visit.
Read
January 13, 2025Sheer brutalist filth, mainly comprising photos and floorplans (you could run one hell of an atypically well-lit dungeon crawl with this to hand). The Olympian perspective of the exterior shots occasionally undersells how wonderfully green and alive the estate feels when you're in there; the pictures of private interiors obviously have higher nosy parker appeal, though also confirm my long-held suspicion that I'd rather have a resident friend who invited me round than live there myself. And even then, a lot of the flats feel a little too impeccably tasteful; I'm particularly concerned about the denizen who does have a full shelf of Wodehouse, but in a uniform edition and ordered by spine colour, a disordered orderliness with which I can imagine Plum himself having a field day.
There is text too, a mixture of residents (past and present) and staff offering their mostly positive impressions of the place with slightly longer essays by architects, journalists &c. Here, alas, we find a fly in the ointment to mirror the Barbican's own galley kitchens. Not because there's anything wrong with the tone they mostly take, a mixture of awe at the great achievement with lament for how hard it is to imagine modern Britain having the vision and determination to accomplish anything remotely comparable. No, the problem is that just as many estates of a similar vintage were doomed to decay and worse by short-sighted penny-pinching, such a lavishly designed and produced volume appears to have considered it an unacceptable luxury to hire a bloody proofreader.
There is text too, a mixture of residents (past and present) and staff offering their mostly positive impressions of the place with slightly longer essays by architects, journalists &c. Here, alas, we find a fly in the ointment to mirror the Barbican's own galley kitchens. Not because there's anything wrong with the tone they mostly take, a mixture of awe at the great achievement with lament for how hard it is to imagine modern Britain having the vision and determination to accomplish anything remotely comparable. No, the problem is that just as many estates of a similar vintage were doomed to decay and worse by short-sighted penny-pinching, such a lavishly designed and produced volume appears to have considered it an unacceptable luxury to hire a bloody proofreader.
July 23, 2020
The photos are great, but I really wish there was a bit more information attached to them: like which bits of the photo are original features, maybe comparisons of the same rooms in different flats of the same type, and so on.
February 19, 2019
A wonderful compilation of photos and plans and other details of all the different apartments over all the different blocks. I particularly enjoyed the stories from residents past and present.
December 25, 2024
Lowering my rate because of the many typos and grammatical errors. Seems the text wasn’t edited at all, unacceptable.
April 14, 2024
It's the perfect reference book for any art directors looking to emulate the classic Barbican designs.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews